Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Lemon Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Stir in the bread crumbs, lemon juice, lemon rind, and water until well combined.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream into a light base.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
- Eggs
- Add structure and set the pudding as they cook, and help bind it together.
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, cake-like crumb.
- Lemon juice and rind
- Provide acidity and bright lemon aroma that flavour the pudding.
The step that matters
Beat in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding them all at once can cause curdling, which leaves the batter uneven in texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, bread):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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